


sunbeam

by frogparties



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Well see, and then what happens, atsuhina break up, atsumu falls in love, kiyoomi makes a friend
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:00:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28681497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frogparties/pseuds/frogparties
Summary: “Disse alguém que há bem no coraçãoUm salão, um salão dourado onde o amor sempre dança”Kiyoomi and Atsumu through the changing seasons.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Miya Atsumu (Exes), Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi, Sakusa Kiyoomi and his own damn self, i mean eventually...aha just kidding........unless?
Comments: 37
Kudos: 38





	1. late spring.

**Author's Note:**

> cw: there's mentions of anxiety throughout this chapter. there's also a teeny mention of recreational weed use. nobody actually smokes in any of the scenes, its use is only mentioned in passing.
> 
> thank you to [andie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireheartaw) and [jenna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaoticFriendly) for betaing and being so kind and nice!!! -inhales-. u rule.

  
  


Kiyoomi finds Atsumu sitting on the kitchen floor, surrounded by shards of glass and a miraculously intact cake. He’s about to make some joke about missing out on the cooking genes in the family when he takes in his friend’s state and bites his tongue. Atsumu doesn’t look at him, doesn’t say hi, doesn’t look like he’s aware of anything. He’s curled up into himself, staring at his fists, with tear tracks down his face. Kiyoomi fetches a broom from the hall closet and begins to sweep the floor. 

“What the hell, Miya?” There’s no bite. It’s almost a mumble. 

He pushes all the pieces of glass into a pile, wraps them up in a rag and dumps it into a cardboard box. Then he kneels in front of the real wreck. Atsumu hasn’t looked at him since he walked into the kitchen.

“Did you get hurt?” 

Atsumu shakes his head no. 

_Are you okay_ would be ridiculous, so Kiyoomi says the next best thing.

“Do you want me to leave.”

He looks up, finally. He looks like complete and utter shit, his eyes all swollen and red and Kiyoomi is upset at the fucking cake and at the glass and at everything that could’ve made Atsumu feel like _that_ and cursing his brains out at a certain redhead that probably definitely had something to do with this. 

Atsumu shakes his head again. 

“Alright.” 

Kiyoomi stands up and turns the kettle on and runs over the possibilities in his mind. Of course he suspects what happened. _Who_ happened. He’s known both cause and effect for years now, after all, not to learn the only thing that makes Atsumu like this is Shouyou. But it’s never, _never_ , been this bad. So what on Earth did Shouyou even _do_ ? He’d never cheat, he thinks. A bad argument, then? But about _what_? And what the hell even happened with the cake? 

The kettle clicks and Kiyoomi pours out two cups, then sits back down in front of Atsumu and places one in his hands. Atsumu blinks, looks at the tea, and promptly bursts into tears. Kiyoomi has half a mind to call Osamu right now and explain he needs urgent help because his twin is melting into the floor when Atsumu sniffles, clears his throat, and —

“He’s leaving, Omi.” The amber eyes wander back up, focus on Kiyoomi for the first time in the afternoon. “He’s going to play in Brazil.” 

_Oh._ Oh, god.

Atsumu’s sobbing now, tears running down like river water during a flood, and Kiyoomi has no fucking clue how to fix it. 

“Fuck,” he says, ever eloquent. “Fuck.” 

* * *

Aside from a test run of his initial six years of life, in which everything was peachy, Kiyoomi has had sixteen years to get acquainted with his asshole of a brain. He is intimate with its rituals and worries, knows how to manage most of its troubles after years of CBT and anxiety medication. He knows what works — yoga, meditation, volleyball, talking to someone, breathwork, a little weed — and what doesn’t — pushing back against the thoughts, following them, paying attention to them, stewing in his own head. 

Still, there’s some days, like today, where he’ll be so pissed off with his own mind the only thing he wants to do is pick a fight with it. He was minding his own business, thank you very much, sitting on the MSBY dorm hall windowsill and reading while he felt the last of the sunset on his back. His brain decided, because of course it did, this was the perfect moment to start spewing out a list of all the reasons why Wakatoshi-kun fell in love with a fucking pastry chef and not him. As if Kiyoomi didn’t already _know_. 

He clicks his tongue, exasperated, and fixes his eyes back to the paragraph he was on before this nonsense distracted him. He makes it two words before his mind prattles out another point (32. Kiyoomi is not a fucking pastry chef) and his focus shatters. He bites down on his lip and loses his place again when a loud laugh rises from the lobby. He closes the book, focuses on the dregs of laughter echoing through the building and breathes. Right when his thoughts are about to resume their joyous tirade, another sound joins the echo — someone’s whistling as they climb the stairs. It’s a soft tune. Something that sounds loved, he thinks, something that could pass for a lullaby. Something soothing. His asshole brain, never to rest, jots up another possible reason (33. Kiyoomi doesn’t whistle), but remains quiet under the sound. The honey on soundwaves curls around the landings, jogs up the last steps and halts.

“Omi-kun? Whatcha doin’ here?” 

Kiyoomi opens his eyes, blinks. He debates between answering truthfully and messing with Miya. If only every question was this easy to answer.

“Oh, you haven’t heard?” Miya leans in, interested. “We’re teammates, I live here.” Kiyoomi bites back a snort as Atsumu groans.

“Ha-ha, peak fuckin’ comedy, Omi. I meant out _here_.” 

“My flat gets cold.” Kiyoomi shrugs. “The hall is warmer.”

“Ah?” Miya cocks his head like some kind of blonde owl. Maybe Bokuto’s rubbed off on him. “Don’t ya have any blankets? I have a couple extra ones, I could—”

“It’s not that.” He waves him off. “It faces east. I like the sun.”

Miya stays there in all his owlish glory for a second.

“What does that hafta—” Kiyoomi can see the moment it clicks. “Oh. Well, my apartment does get the sunset, if ya ever get tired of sittin’ on the shitty windowsill you can always come to mine.” 

Well. 

Kiyoomi grunts out a thank you.

“Sure, Omiomi.” Miya waves, keys in hand, as he walks away. The whistle picks up again and fades as Miya shuts the door behind him. Kiyoomi’s image of him in high school has long since evolved (frankly, it’s not too hard to move past “pisshaired goblin”, and Miya did it with flying colours), and now includes the fact that he can be funny and is a good teammate and can actually be good company (sixteen-year-old Kiyoomi shudders in his timeline). And now there’s kind-and-whistling-Miya. Huh. Alright.

The sun slips below the mountains, and Kiyoomi slips back into his apartment. He does yoga, he waters his plants, he struggles with his damn book and makes it through a chapter. He picks up Motoya’s video call and pretends to be annoyed at it for a minute, then relaxes into his cousin’s easy company as he makes dinner. He takes a shower hopefully scalding enough to fry his brain (it doesn’t work; that fucking list is its magnum opus). He goes through his seven-step skincare routine. He gets into bed, takes his pill, and manages to fall asleep.

The next time Kiyoomi wants the sunset, he knocks on Miya’s door. His image expands to fit _is a good host_ and _will make you tea unprompted_. The afternoon unfurls, comfortable and warm, between mugs of sencha.

“I’m orderin’ food soon,” Miya says under the last drops of sun. “D’ya want somethin’?” 

Not wanting to take advantage of Miya’s hospitality, and confused at the fact they’ve spent more than an hour without throwing barbs at each other, Kiyoomi says _no, thank you_ and leaves shortly afterwards. Then he feels guilty (Kiyoomi feeling _guilty_ ; Motoya would have a field day). To try and tamp down the sensation that he somehow used Miya (his mind’s Motoya is full-on cackling now), Kiyoomi invites him over the following weekend. The light isn’t as nice in his apartment, he thinks, and it’s colder, but the takeout is good and he and Miya bicker and tease and laugh like they always do on court, and in the end the lack of a sunset doesn’t really matter.

Soft and quiet, a weekly tradition blooms. 

* * *

When Kiyoomi was a child, around six or seven, he had a near-permanent stomach ache. It rose alongside him in the morning, accompanied him to class, and would sometimes fizzle out by the time he took a nighttime bath and got ready for bed, only to return with the thought of going back to school the next day. He’d toss and turn and press his hands against his belly, and try and fail to sleep. 

For months and months, nobody knew about it. Kiyoomi thought it was normal, and his family, when paying attention, blamed his silence and lack of energy on introversion. When someone had the idea to ask why he constantly pressed his palms against his stomach and he replied with _I’m lowering the hurt_ , they took him to the doctor. He’s perfectly healthy, they said, and sent him home with a pat on the head and a recommendation to cut back on greasy food and dairy.

It didn’t help. The acid in his stomach still kept him unwanted company wherever he went. He asked Motoya _does your stomach not hurt all the time_ and Motoya said _what_ and Kiyoomi stuck his tongue out and didn’t speak another word about it to him.

His parents kept looking for the reason, fidgeting with his diet and taking him to appointments where the doctors would weigh him and press a stethoscope below his ribs and prick his skin for allergies and all end up giving the same useless recommendations. They filtered him through Tokyo’s gastrointestinal elite until one dinner party where one of his mother’s friends whispered, voice low like it was a moral fault, _Have you tried a psychologist?_

Thus began Kiyoomi’s lifelong dance with therapy and his weekly childhood visits to a sharp, tall woman who would let him draw only using blue pencils and walk around the room if he didn’t want to sit and said things like _What does this colour feel like_ and _Who is your best friend_ and _What do you like about school_ and _It’s okay, you can cry_. She asked, really asked, without having previously assumed his answers or minimized his emotions, and so he did his best to be truthful and answer. _Blue feels safe_ , he said in the middle of colouring a drawing; _I don’t know_ , as he counted the steps between one wall and the other; _My stomach hurts_ , as he thought about going back to school; _Okay_ , and wiped his nose.

At around the same time, on a Saturday morning with Motoya by his side, Kiyoomi met volleyball. He liked the open feeling of the gymnasium, the squeak of shoes against the floor, and felt both enamoured and terrified of the way teammates shouted their praise and built a wall of sound made up of _Nice kill_ and _One more_ and _Good job_. He loved how it looked like they were flying and would have screamed in excitement had his personality not been more suited to that of a monk in a vow of silence. He did the next best thing — faint under his breath, almost imperceptible, he whispered _wow_. 

He liked the abrupt sting of his skin after hitting the ball. He loved bumping it up and crouching down to get it and looking at how it spun in the air and trying to smack it down. He liked being with Motoya and having his laugh so close by and getting to pass the ball to him. He hated the idea of his first game because he had to introduce himself to _everyone_ , but promptly moved past the embarrassment when he got to slam the ball down and felt the wave of _Good job_ smooth over his nerves.

And Kiyoomi didn’t have to think about anything — couldn’t think about anything — except the ball, his focus honed so sharp he could forget about the world outside the court. Nothing felt real except for the ache of his muscles and the sting of his palms and the rush of the spike and the voices threading together into the thrum of it all, surrounding him. And so volleyball began for him, a safe haven after school, and his stomach ache would stop for two and a half hours.

* * *

[15:59] << Dinner today?

[16:06] >> yea

[16:06] >> u and i get dinner every single thursday

[16:06] >> why do u even ask

[16:07] << You never RSVP, do you

[16:07] >> is that like bdsm

[16:07] >> kinky, omi!!!!

[16:08] << God shut up

[16:08] << What did Hinata even see in you

[16:08] << And let me in, I’m outside

[16:09] >> RUDE!!! you told me to shoot my shot in the first place!!!!

[16:10] >> fucking overflowing BEAUTY is what he saw!!

[16:10] >> oh and we’re not home!!

Kiyoomi wilts. He resigns himself to sitting in front of the hall window to get the last of the sunset while he waits for Miya and his poor boyfriend to come home when his phone buzzes again: 

[16:11] >> left a key for u

[16:11] >> under the mat

[16:11] >> let yrself in 

What. He toes the mat over and yup, there’s a key alright. He stays there, looking at it like it could explode or burst aflame or possibly contain radioactive poisoning, until new text notifications jolt him back to the ground.

[16:14] >> we’ll be there in like

[16:14] >> 30ish

He picks it up with two fingers and stares and stares and stares. What the hell. 

[16:21] << Alright

[16:21] << Thanks 

[16:22] >> shou cant stay for dinner :(

[16:22] >> meetin up w some karasuno guy? or somethin

[16:22] << Let your boyfriend live

[16:22] << I can feel your jealousy thru the phone

[16:23] >> RUDE AGAIN!!!!

[16:23] << Shut up 

There is a specific kind of trust involved in receiving a friend’s house key. There is a subsequent intimacy in being allowed in when said friend is absent. The lock turns. Kiyoomi takes a step and lets out an exhale when the floor doesn’t split open underfoot. Another, and he’s _inside_. He’s in Miya’s home, with full permission, all by himself. He closes the door, ginger as ever, slips his shoes off and stands in the entrance. The afternoon sun stretches out from the living room and brushes the tips of his feet. He wiggles his toes. 

* * *

Miya’s boring holes into the new wing spiker with his gaze. Again. Kiyoomi bites back a snort and kicks at his leg under the table.

“Stop drooling.” When, instead of jabbing back, Miya _blushes_ , all red and pink and flustered, Kiyoomi grins like an animal who caught his prey. “You _like_ him.” 

“Shut the hell up, Omi,” Miya manages to mumble out. “G’ddammit, finish yer fuckin’ dinner.”

Kiyoomi swallows down his full-body laugh with a sip of water.

“Just talk to him.”

“Ah yes, taking relationship advice from the guy who’s as social as a fuckin’ clam.”

Kiyoomi smirks even as the remark conjures up the list he’d forgotten months ago and tacks a new point on it (162. Kiyoomi isn’t social). 

“Surprised you know what a clam is. _Talk_ to him.”

“ _Fine._ ” 

Miya shoves his chair back and walks over to Hinata’s side of the table. Kiyoomi can’t make out what he says, but it only takes a moment before they’re both laughing. He can see it’s easy, the way they dip into conversation, and when Miya quickly beams at him, Kiyoomi smirks back. 

He feels oddly proud and — he really should call Motoya, why the hell does he even feel _proud_ when Miya could seduce a fucking brick wall. Oh, well, life’s perennial questions, he supposes. 

Kiyoomi turns to answer a question from Bokuto and then grills him for ways he could improve his, as Miya puts it, nasty _nasty_ spikes. Bokuto’s really not that bad, absolute lack of an indoor voice notwithstanding, and his insight is useful. Inunaki chimes in, then Meian, and, as soon as the conversation allows, Kiyoomi attempts to pay his part of the tab, gets refused by Meian, and says his goodbyes before he can feel overwhelmed (163. Kiyoomi gets crowded from talking to three people).

That night, before leaving the rest of the Jackals to the end of their bonding dinner, Kiyoomi glances over to where Hinata and Miya are sitting, as if in a world of their own, and witnesses the beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u for reading :)  
> this is so fun to write <:)


	2. rain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u andie and jenna :)

In the handful of moments between sleep and awareness, Atsumu always reaches for Shouyou. His arms close around his waist, his hands spread against his back, his lips meet collarbone and neck and mouth. Before anything else, there’s Shouyou. Before consciousness and waking and life, there he is, a miracle beside him in bed. He’s always warm, a thousand little fires under Atsumu’s touch, like he swallowed the sun at some point and now it burns through his skin. And he always reaches back. In a tangle of legs and arms and fingers and hands and breaths, Shouyou begins Atsumu’s days. 

Today is no different. _Atsumu_ , Shouyou says, his name the first word he utters, and presses a kiss to his forehead. _Good morning._ A kiss to the tip of his nose, a laugh when it scrunches up. Another one to his cheek, to his jaw, to the ticklish underside of his neck. _I love you._ And Atsumu finally opens his eyes, and smiles, and kisses his wonderful boy back.

The morning unfolds, slow and warm, splaying over their skin like silk. Shouyou stretches and slips out of bed, one last kiss goodbye, then leaves for his daily run. The sun pulls Atsumu back to sleep.

He wakes to the sound of music. Stretches, feels the pull and soreness of his muscles, rolls out of bed and follows the melody. 

Shouyou’s singing. He’s in the kitchen, an apron over his boxer briefs, all tan skin and Sunday morning voice spinning Portuguese into honey and Atsumu is — well. Atsumu is leaning against the doorway. Atsumu is wrapping his arms around Shouyou and kissing the song out of his mouth and asking what the lyrics mean. Atsumu’s in love and everything is easy.

Later, after breakfast and tea, they lay curled up on the couch, full-bellied and drowsy again. The sun slips into the living room in gentle shafts, turning the room gold, and Shouyou traces Atsumu’s eyebrows, his cheekbones, his lips, fingertips as light and soft as a dream. 

“What do you think the lyrics mean?”

“Dunno.” Atsumu’s half gone already. “Sounds like a love song.”

“Not quite.” Shouyou’s fingers on his jawline, Shouyou’s mouth mumbling against his neck. “Do you want me to translate?”

Atsumu, half drunk on sleep and adoration, says _yes, please_.

* * *

Atsumu was born three minutes apart from a lifelong instinct. He lived eighteen years a breath away from Osamu, shared a room and a life and a friendship that ran deeper than blood. Sometimes, like when they moved as one while they played volleyball, Atsumu was secretly convinced they shared a mind. 

When he was recruited right out of high school and swept into the world of professional sport, everything felt like the start of a dream, like he could finally see the way to the top of the world and begin the climb; it also felt like losing a limb. He’d get ghost pain, sometimes (everyday, at first), when he instinctively turned to gauge Osamu’s reaction after a nasty play, or looked for him between his teammate’s laughing faces during dinner. Nothing, not the absence of Inarizaki or Kobe or his mother’s smile, had left a similar ache.

“Miss me yet?” Osamu would ask over their frequent phone calls. 

And Atsumu, like clockwork, like habit and instinct and sharing a heart for a lifetime, would reply — “Like a fuckin’ hole in the head.”

  
  


And now, as he lies in a makeshift cocoon of blankets, Atsumu can hear someone opening the front door. He makes out the sound of his brother’s footsteps down the hall, and yes, of _course_ Osamu would show up unannounced in his apartment less than two days after the break up. Having a twin, Atsumu has learned and relearned over twenty-odd years, is having bone-deep intuition for someone else. He burrows his face deeper inside the pillows, pulls the covers over his head. Osamu doesn’t knock, just walks into the room and stands over the formless blob that is Atsumu curled up in bed.

“Ya look like shit.” That means _good morning_.

“Fuck you, ya haven’t even seen me,” he mumbles in response, voice raspy from disuse. That one’s _thank you for coming_. 

The bed dips under Osamu’s weight. He tugs at the bedspread, trying to uncover Atsumu’s face, and he lets him. Their eyes meet for a second before Atsumu has to look away. 

“What’re ya gonna do, ’Tsumu?” 

Atsumu grumbles in response and Osamu flicks him on the forehead, pulling out a startled yelp. “Use yer words.”

“Fuck off, ’Samu.” _Thank you for being here I hate this I hate everything but thank you._

“Are ya takin’ a leave?” 

Is he? That’d be wonderful, he thinks. It would also be stupid as all hell, with the season ending in a week. Their opportunity at winning the championship is so close he can feel it in his teeth, has carried it around in his chest ever since he joined the Jackals (maybe even before then. Maybe ever since he was small and wide-eyed and began to dream). Of course he won’t take a leave. 

“One week, ’Tsumu.” Fucking mind reader. “You can do one week in yer sleep.” 

  
  


It is, oddly enough, not as hard as he expected. Yes, seeing Shouyou hurts like a punch to the gut, a knife to the ribs, and when he first walks into practice Atsumu has to take a moment to catch his breath. Yes. But they are something different on court. Atsumu has never doubted Shouyou, not for a second, and he flies as high as he always does and burns even brighter. His spikes are a wonder, his digs a blessing. He’s perfect. And Atsumu — Atsumu is petty and selfish and rude in every way that could matter except for when he’s playing. Every toss he sends is like an act of love, every game sees him give his heart to the team. Why would he stop now? How could he stop now?

There’s a reason, after all, Atsumu chose volleyball and has kept choosing it every single day for the past decade. He fell in love with the sport, then pushed and pushed and pushed until it loved him back. And it’s a thrill. It’s a joy. It’s the best thing he’s ever built. The world melts away until all he knows is contained within an 18 by 9 rectangle and everything he needs is, at least for a moment, within reach.

  
  


The days spin through like a shapeless dream. He knows exhaustion and heartbreak will hit him the moment he stops to think, the moment he stays still, so he doesn’t. He serves and sets and spikes and tries, with all his might, to keep his mind numb until after they play the final. He feels like his edges are fraying, slowly unravelling him day by day, pulling him apart, and grits his teeth and pushes on. 

Osamu stays for a couple of days and promises to return for the game, and Omi, fucking blessed Omi-kun, comes over almost everyday and keeps him company. 

And then it’s the final. It’s the final and everything else is blurring and the only thing Atsumu can think about is the game and the play and the court and his monstrous, beautiful teammates and nothing else matters. Nothing else is real.

* * *

Shouyou looks like a dream, messy hair splayed across the pillow and golden skin against the white sheets. Atsumu kisses his shoulder and Shouyou giggles. He runs his fingers over Shouyou’s ribs, over the spray of freckles on his chest, then presses kisses to them and feels Shouyou’s heart respond to the touch. 

“You like them, huh, Atsumu-san?” Shouyou says, voice low and fucking impossible. The honorific drips like syrup from his lips and Atsumu leans over to taste it. He feels him soften under the touch, licks his mouth open. Shouyou moans and Atsumu drinks it in. 

“I do,” he mumbles in between kisses. “I like _you_.” He smiles, pulls back slightly. “Happy anniversary, by the way.” Shouyou grins.

“Happy one year, handsome.”

One year. Atsumu has been counting his blessings for that long already. When Shouyou leans up to kiss him again, Atsumu feels like he’s standing on top of the world’s tallest fucking mountain.

Shouyou gets a call later in the day, leaves the room for half an hour and comes back shining.

“I got an offer!” he says as he jumps back on the bed. “From a team in Brazil!”

Atsumu props himself up on an elbow and pulls him into a kiss. “Holy shit, congratulations!” Shouyou kisses him again, soft and sweet, and beams. “That’s fuckin’ great, Shou, really.”

“Right?!” Shouyou stands up on the bed, still buzzing from the excitement, and bounces around the mattress in his typical excited fashion. Atsumu grins up at him, warmth blooming in his chest. “When I was there I hadn’t even played professionally! I would be going back a completely different person!”

“I’m proud of ya,” Atsumu says. And, since they’re speaking in hypotheticals, he adds, “You’ll send me a postcard, won’t ya?”

Shouyou laughs, open and bright. 

“Of course I will.”

* * *

Atsumu sits out on his balcony and rubs his hands together to try and warm them up. He looks over his shoulder at the flat, bites his lip. Shouyou took what little stuff he had almost a week ago, a few days after the fight. Atsumu had sent him a text and stayed in his room while Shouyou slipped in and out in less than half an hour. 

He had never officially moved in, never even transferred everything down from his own place on the fourth floor. He’d never hung his shirts in the closet, next to Atsumu’s, or brought down all his kitchen appliances. After a couple of months, one day Shouyou just _lived_ with Atsumu, woke up and ate and went to sleep with him, and would sometimes scramble upstairs for a change of clothes or an extra pillow. He left the barest traces of his presence around the apartment — a mug on the kitchen counter, a dog-eared manga volume under a couch pillow, a worn Karasuno VBC hoodie strung from the back of a chair. The sight of his things was so rare they always caught Atsumu’s eye. Now that they were gone, it was like Shouyou had never been there at all. There was no empty drawer in Atsumu’s room, no gap in his bookshelf. Still, he could feel Shouyou’s absence like a storm in the air. He felt it in the lack of sound, in the cold beside him in bed, in every moment his mind slipped and he turned to meet Shouyou’s eye or tell him about his day. He could picture his shape against the windows and his curled up form on the couch, the figure of his back as he cooked and the echo of his laugh.

Sleep made it better, providing a few oblivious hours, only for the truth to hit him every morning when he reached out and touched air. 

Twenty months too late, sitting by himself in the frigid nighttime air, Atsumu realizes Shouyou never intended to stay. He stays outside long after his fingers go numb with the cold.

* * *

Omi-kun, Atsumu thinks, is like a pistachio. And an oyster. And a sea urchin, but that had been previously established about a month ago in a joke only Shouyou, bless his heart, had appreciated. Anyway, what this _means_ , what all these lovely creatures have in common with his bastardly best friend, is Omi’s all closed off and hard and prickly on the outside, and a fucking delight once you find your way in. 

Atsumu first noticed months ago, a little after they became teammates and early on in their friendship, when Omi and Osamu first properly met. Atsumu had sat there, in his usual spot at Onigiri Miya’s counter, munching on his food and watching Omi attentively listen to ’Samu’s god-awful, neverending thoughts about rice balls and his restaurant and the trials and tribulations of making a national staple. Omi didn’t even fucking like onigiri, but there he’d been, nodding and asking good questions and then joining forces with ’Samu to bully the hell out of Atsumu. All in all, a good day, and he loved seeing them get along even if he’d never admit it to either of their faces.

Now, once again sitting at his brother’s counter because apparently that’s the place to have eureka moments about your loved ones’ personalities, Atsumu watches the way Omi slowly thaws under Shouyou’s warmth. Osamu’s already a goner, liked Shouyou since he arrived an hour ago, said hi, and promptly turned Atsumu into a flustered mess by kissing him on the cheek. And _yes_ , alright, Atsumu had been a teensy bit nervous over the thought of Osamu not liking his boyfriend, so seeing Shouyou easily win him over was a relief.

“Yes, Omi-san! Exactly!” Shouyou cries out, and the corner of Omi’s mouth infinitesimally, minimally tugs up. Atsumu almost shrieks. _A pistachio_ , he thinks again, and can’t stop a giddy laugh from bubbling out. Osamu looks up from where he’s molding rice into miracles, the little fucker, and looks at him funny. Atsumu happily flips him off. 

Back in his apartment, sprawled out on the couch as nighttime seeps through the city, Atsumu reads a text message from his brother.

[20:14] >> i like ur bf more than i like u

He grins.

[20:15] << so do i

[20:15] >> mom will love him dont worry

What the hell kind of reply is _that._ His eyes well up before he can help it and he groans. A little image winds into his mind — Shouyou making bread with his mother, Shouyou having tea at their tiny kitchen table, Shouyou going through the gentle teasing and questioning every important visitor was subjected to. His mother loving Shouyou, too. Shouyou calling her _’Kaasan,_ or _Hisako-san_ if he gets lucky.

Atsumu hasn’t called her in a while. He has the sudden urge to jump on the next train to Amagasaki and hug her. 

[20:21] << shut up shut up shut up

[20:21] << of course she will, loser

On his next day off, Atsumu visits home. 

* * *

They win the final. They win the game they win they win they _win_ , and when the last ball slams to the ground the world bursts open. For a second they live in a wave of electric joy and love and roaring laughter and they’re all a tangle of arms and legs and grins and tears and hearts and they just won the biggest game in the country. There is only this moment, this moment always, this moment forever. There is only them.

When he rises from the tangle, minutes or hours or a lifetime later, Atsumu feels like he’s waking up for the first time, looking at the world with new eyes, coming up for air. His body still burns, exhilaration and adrenaline buzzing through it like liquid fire, and his chest is closing up with a snarl of emotion. He looks around the court, desperate, searching searching searching, and — there he is. Osamu is waiting on the sidelines, love and pride plain on his face and already looking at him, and when their eyes meet they both start moving and meet halfway. 

One week overdue, holding onto Osamu like a lifeline, Atsumu cries. 

* * *

Shouyou’s eyes are burning. The sun glints behind him, forming a halo around his hair, spilling light against his figure in the kitchen doorway. He looks so beautiful it aches. Atsumu forces his gaze down and stares at the strawberries he’d been in the middle of slicing in half.

There’s a knot in his throat. He grips the knife so tightly the wooden handle cuts into his skin.

“Atsumu-san.”

The knife slices through the fruit, cutting into the wooden board from the force he’s putting into it. 

“Atsumu-san.”

He tenses, accidentally tightens his hold on a strawberry half and breaks the skin. He watches how the juice spills through the notches in the board and his throat is tightening tightening tightening and he can’t breathe. He coughs.

“Are ya leavin’?” His voice sounds wretched and ugly, like he’s about to cry. And he is, so he takes another strawberry and cuts it, then carefully arranges all of the halves around the cake. The tips of his fingers are stained red and he can’t keep pretending to be busy when Shouyou just watched him finish the decoration so he takes in a breath and steels himself. Atsumu’s heart spills out of his mouth as he looks up, finally looks up, and meets Shouyou’s eyes.

“We’ve talked about this. You know I am.”

And Atsumu’s voice finally rips away from his throat — 

“Oh don’t give me that, Shou, I had to learn from fuckin’ Bokkun that Asas São Paolo’s new star player was my fuckin’ boyfriend.” The poison, hot and sweet, spilling into his words. “Congratulations, by the way.”

Shouyou’s face breaks. 

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” His voice is raw, frayed at the edges when he yells, and Atsumu never wants to hear that sound again. 

“With _me_?! Don’t be a hypocrite!”

Shouyou’s expression is forever etched into Atsumu’s mind, anger spilling from his eyes as he yells and Atsumu does too. Their sentences break and heave and get tangled in each others’ anger as it rises, suffocating them. And Atsumu can’t stop staring at Shouyou’s horrible, heartbreaking face when he starts crying as he screams, like he’s finally seen the version of Atsumu everyone has always warned him about. 

“I’ve told you since we got together. You know this is what I want.”

Atsumu bites his lip so hard it bleeds, but the tears still spill out.

“I didn’t know you wanted to leave now!” _I thought we were happy right now. I wouldn’t give this up, I would never give this up, so why would you?_

“I’ve always wanted to!” 

“Then did this” — and Atsumu throws his arm out to gesture to the room and their plants and their twenty months of loving squeezed into an apartment and his sleeve gets caught on the edge of the glass dish that holds the cake and sends it crashing into the ground like the world’s loudest punctuation mark and —

And then nothing. Nothing, like someone had pulled all the sound out of the room. Atsumu doesn’t even look at the cake. There is only Shouyou, standing across the counter. Shouyou Shouyou Shouyou. His everyday prayer, saying goodbye. 

“Did this mean nothing to ya?”

Their heavy breathing slowly grows steadier. Shouyou’s anger shuts down, his face goes quiet, and then, in a soft soft voice —

“Would you really want me to give this up for you? You would ask that?”

“I shouldn’t have to fuckin’ ask!” His voice sounds stripped bare, gnashes at his throat.

“So you’d prefer me to stay?! To give up?”

“Stayin’ with me is giving up?” Atsumu is crying now, gasping through the tears, and his voice fucking cracks again. “What the fuck, Shou?” Shouyou visibly flinches at the nickname, wipes the back of his hand against his eyes.

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

And Atsumu has lived with a twin heart for a lifetime. He had a parallel line running beside him for eighteen years before learning dreams and hopes were fickle, individual things, never completely shared. He’s already had this conversation. Osamu, all grey hair and boyish frown, made him understand through tears and yells and heartbreak and the type of love that only a brother could give. 

“I understand that’s what ya want.”

 _He’s already had this conversation_. Atsumu thinks this should mean the second time should hurt less. Why doesn’t it hurt less? Why does he feel like his brother is leaving and Shouyou is leaving and they’re both leaving except it’s worse because Osamu didn’t want to play volleyball and Shouyou does, just not with him? 

“I understand that’s what ya want,” he says again. “But I don’t want it. I don’t want it at all.”

He’s already had this conversation, and when he says he understands, he means it. He does. He understood six years ago. 

  
  


Shouyou leaves in the afternoon, right as the light dips below the horizon, and takes the sun with him. 

“I don’t want,” he had said, moments before leaving, and Atsumu had wanted nothing more than to take him in his arms. “I don’t want us to end on bad terms.”

 _I don’t want us to end at all_.

Atsumu can’t breathe. He looks at the mess on the floor. The cake survived, somehow, and lies in the center of the broken glass dish. All the strawberries are still in place except for one. He crouches to pick it up but the cake looks so fucking ridiculous there and he’s all by himself and he should go get a broom and clean everything up but that’s impossible and Shouyou is leaving but that’s impossible too and he’s dripping tears on the cake and he’s so fucking angry and he can’t breathe and he kneels on the floor and cries and cries and cries.

The fall from the mountaintop, he discovers, is instantaneous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apparently, early summer is rain season in japan.  
> thank you for reading! 
> 
> edit 07/02 added a lil thing


	3. autumn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> helllooooo, long time no see :)  
> if you're following along as i post, i highly highly highly recommend going back to read parts 1 and 2 since i uploaded them almost two months ago and they're all very much connected. also we are at the halfway point! probably ha.  
> pt 4 will be up in a week and pt 5, if school gives me a breather, in 2. thank you very much for reading.

Kiyoomi balances the boxes of takeout on his forearm and opens the door to Atsumu’s apartment.

“Hey, I’m here,” he calls as he slips his shoes off. He dips into the bathroom to wash his hands and walks to the living room, following the sound of a conversation. “I got food.”

“Hey, Omi.” Atsumu, sprawled on the couch, glances at him and turns back to his phone. “Ma, Omi’s here.”

“ _Kiyoomi!_ ” He can hear her voice, tinny through the speakers, and smiles as he leaves the boxes on the coffee table, pushes Atsumu’s legs from the edge of the couch and sits down. Atsumu kicks them onto his lap and angles the screen in his direction. “Kiyoomi, how have ya been?”

He smiles at the sight of her, the twins’ carbon copy, all grins and brown eyes and flour-dusted hands, standing in her usual spot at her home kitchen in Amagasaki. 

“Hello, Miya-san.”

“I’ve _told_ ya to drop that! Hisako or nothing.” She’s frowning, but the warmth in her tone seeps through and they’re all laughing before she talks again. “Hisako-san is fine if yer brain will explode without the honorific.”

It probably would.

“Hisako-san.”

She smiles, satisfied, and slams a heap of dough onto the counter, kneading it with the practised ease of a life-long action.

“What! _What?!_ ” He feels Atsumu’s indignant gaze even without looking at him. “Why am I still _Miya_ , then?”

“I like her better.” 

Miya — _Hisako-san_ — snorts, and Atsumu flips Kiyoomi off just out of the camera’s sight.

“I hate ya,” he says, and passes him the phone. “Gonna get some plates, momma, leave ya with Omi.” 

Kiyoomi looks back at the screen. Hisako-san is warm and welcoming as always, and his chest stutters when he thinks of his own mother, tucked away in his memory, collecting dust and distance.

“So, Kiyoomi,” she says, and delivers a particularly solid hit to the dough she’s kneading, “when are ya comin’ to visit? We missed ya on New Year’s, and we can’t keep only talkin’ on the phone forever instead of in person! I’ll die if ya keep me waitin’ any longer!”

His mouth quirks up at her enthusiasm. _Carbon copy._

“I’ll go whenever you’ll have me, Mi — Hisako-san. I have to say, though, I thought our phone call friendship was doing rather well.” She instantly laughs and he smiles at the sound. It’s just like Atsumu’s, sudden and bubbling and warm, and Kyoomi turns to look for him before he can help it. He’s walking over from the kitchen, carefully balancing plates and chopsticks and glasses of water, and looking like an absolute fool.

“I’ll hold ya to that, Kiyoomi.” He turns back to her, almost smiles. “I hope you’ll at _least_ come for the holidays this time. I understand ’Tsumu bein’ shy about the boyfriend but yer his best friend!” _Best friend_? If Hisako-san thinks they’re best friends then _Atsumu_ must think they’re best friends and Kiyoomi is blushing and smiling and he tries to form a coherent thought but _bestfriendbestfriendbestfriend_ keeps zipping through his head like a tune he’s lucky to get to hear.

“Don’t blame him, ma.” Atsumu sets the things on the coffee table and slumps down on the couch. His voice cuts through the warm buzz in Kiyoomi’s mind, and he processes the rest of Hisako-san’s previous sentence. “It’s not his fault, I’ll bring him over when I visit if he’s not too busy.”

She hums, brushes her hands together to get rid of the excess flour. 

“Well, Kiyoomi, yer always welcome here. Anytime, whether ’Tsumu’s here or not.”

“Thank you,” he stumbles out, somewhat recovered but still blushing, the last traces of _best friend_ ringing through his mind. “Likewise. In here, I mean.”

Atsumu snorts but his mother smiles, soft and kind. 

“Appreciate that. I’ll leave ya two to have dinner. Take care, the both of ya! Love ya.”

“Love ya too, ’kaasan, later.”

Kiyoomi waves and Atsumu ends the call.

“ _Likewise._ _In here, I mean_ ,” Atsumu smirks in an awful impersonation of his voice, and cackles. Kiyoomi snorts, presses his palms against his eyes.

“Shut up.”

Atsumu grins as he starts serving the ramen into bowls. Kiyoomi looks at him, at the soft line of his mouth, the curve of his eyelashes, and wonders. 

“Since when are you ‘shy about the boyfriend’?”

“’m not shy! Just—” The smile wobbles, slips. Atsumu hands him a pair of chopsticks and a bowl. “He’s from Miyagi, y’know, makes sense that he usually goes there for breaks with all his family and friends and shit.” 

“Your house is an hour away by train.” Atsumu nods, slurps his noodles. “Miyagi is what, six? Seven?”

“About eleven.”

 _About eleven_. Kiyoomi stares at the spring onions and the egg halves and the slices of pork and the noodles instead of answering. He takes a mouthful of food, tries to pick up a piece of mushroom but it slips through his chopsticks.

“Anyway, ya haven’t been to my place at all, Omi-omi.”

He breaks eye contact with the offending shroom and squints at Atsumu.

“That’s because you’ve never _invited_ me, Miya.” 

“What, like ya would’ve said yes?”

Kiyoomi wonders whether Atsumu has a fever. 

“Miya, we’ve been friends” — the word grates at his throat, barely used, and Atsumu’s eyes widen — “for _years_. I’m literally having dinner with you, like I do every single damned week. Do you want a bracelet.”

“Aw, Omi-omi, ya think we’re friends?” 

“No. I was kidding.” He chases the mushroom around as he speaks, tries to trap it between his chopsticks, fails again. “Bokuto’s my best and only friend, tough luck.” 

“ _I’m_ yer best fuckin’ friend, filthy liar, owl boy’s got nothin’ on me.”

He’s right, of course he is, and Kiyoomi laughs, ridiculously happy over the confirmation that they are, in fact, _best fuckin’ friends_ , and Atsumu throws a balled-up napkin at him. It bounces off his shoulder.

“You’re not even my favourite Miya, Miya,” he says once his laugh fizzles.

“ _Sure_ , Omi-kun, keep tellin’ yerself that.”

“Awful aim, by the way.”

Atsumu sticks his tongue out and Kiyoomi smirks, goes back to his personal vendetta against the mushroom. He stabs down, finally managing to skewer it, and is about to eat it when Atsumu talks again, gaze practically buried in his bowl.

“Yer fully invited, by the way, can come with me next time I go if ya want. Or ya could come over this summer for longer, too. If yer not too busy.” His eyes flick up and catch Kiyoomi’s. There’s something nervous about them, the ripples of uncertainty plain on the surface, and Kiyoomi has the urge to reach out and hold Atsumu’s hand, try and soothe every worry he’s ever had.

“Okay,” he says. “Sure, sounds good.”

Atsumu grins, and the relief in his face takes Kiyoomi’s heart and squeezes. Kiyoomi eats his goddamned mushroom, and blames the warmth in his chest on the food.

  
  


Hours later, when the air turns moonlit blue, Kiyoomi goes back to his apartment. He makes a last-minute cup of tea, takes a hot shower and his pill and his bimonthly injection, and has a scintillating conversation with his plants ( _They grow more when you talk to them, Sakusa-kun, I swear_. Kiyoomi had poked fun at Bokuto and then done it every night thereafter). Motoya calls when he’s in the middle of telling them about his serve practice, and he answers.

His cousin doesn’t even say _how are you_ before launching into surgically precise complaints on his team’s rotation and performance during the championship, hands gesturing so much Kiyoomi thinks he’s going to drop the phone.

“Leave EJP if you hate it so much and come to the Jackals with me.” 

“I love EJP,” Motoya instantly replies, and Kiyoomi snorts. “The only cool thing about joining MSBY would be getting to play with you again.”

Ah, well, Motoya had always known how to be openly affectionate. Kiyoomi could take a pointer or two, learn how to translate his emotions without tripping up every time. He could, and probably should, but tonight he lets the atrociously sweet and unexpected comment pass him by and smooths his thumb over a leaf. 

“The national team’s friendlies start in December.”

“So what? There’s like ten months left until then.” 

“I didn’t know you could do _math_ , Motoya, nice job.”

“Not fair of me to get the brains _and_ the beauty in the family, but that’s life, Kiyoo-kun.” Motoya blows a kiss at him and Kiyoomi flips him off.

The talk stretches out, comfortable and inconsequential, until they’re both struggling to keep their eyes open. Kiyoomi falls asleep as soon as he gets in bed. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Kiyoomi sits on the kitchen floor and tugs Atsumu in, holds him as he cries.

“Fuck,” he says again, quiet against Atsumu’s hair. Third time’s the charm, he supposes. “I’m sorry.”

Kiyoomi rubs slow circles on his back, softly runs his fingers against the nape of his neck, tightens his arms when Atsumu’s body heaves with sobs. The cold, hard tiles cramp up his legs. He doesn’t notice at first, doesn’t mind when he does.

“It’s going to be okay, Miya,” Kiyoomi murmurs, trying to soothe him as best as he can. His voice comes out in a low, warm rumble, the only sound in the falling night, and he keeps speaking as Atsumu cries. “It’s going to be fine, I promise. You’re going to be fine, ’Tsumu.”

When his sobs cease and his breathing evens out, Kiyoomi helps him stand. Atsumu leads the way to his room, gripping his hand like he’s afraid Kiyoomi will disappear at any second, and only lets go for a moment to slip in between the covers. Kiyoomi sits down next to him, runs a thumb over the back of his hand, and frowns.

“You did get hurt.”

There’s a shallow cut on Atsumu’s knuckle, a thin line of blood that smears under Kiyoomi’s touch. Must have been a stray shard of glass.

“Oh,” Atsumu mumbles, frowning. “Didn’t notice.”

“Give me a second.” Kiyoomi squeezes his hand and gets up, brings back the cups of tea and the tiny first aid kit from the kitchen, leaves them on the bedside table. He sits back against the headboard and takes Atsumu’s hand again.

Kiyoomi cleans the wound with antiseptic, smooths a bandage over it and presses a tiny kiss to the knuckle. 

“There,” he mumbles, and Atsumu lets out a shaky breath. Kiyoomi looks up and he’s crying again and they pull into each other, arms and chests and legs and Kiyoomi’s hands in soft blonde hair and Atsumu’s sobs against him.

“Oh, ’Tsumu, it’s going to be okay.” He curls his fingers through Atsumu’s hair, runs little lines up and down his back, hugs him tighter. “I love you, I’m sorry. It’s going to be fine.”

He feels Atsumu’s heart against his own, the grip of his fingers on his sweatshirt, and presses another kiss on him, soft as a whisper. Atsumu’s sobs even out into silent tears over time, then steady breaths, and Kiyoomi gently tilts back until he’s laying on the bed, Atsumu curled up into him. 

The night shifts into dawn, unnoticed and unseen, and Kiyoomi turns twenty-four with Atsumu in his arms. 

  
  


An atrociously loud rendition of _Happy Birthday_ wakes Kiyoomi up. He groans and rolls over in bed, trying to find the noise, and instead bumps into Atsumu, sitting up and smiling at him as he sings. Kiyoomi blinks, confused, and remembers.

Atsumu looks like shit, tired and cried out, and Kiyoomi loves him for even opening his eyes, for bothering to wake up at all. Kiyoomi hates the entire country of Brazil. He would trade it for a seashell. 

He would trade the world for Atsumu in his Vabo-chan pyjamas, for Atsumu with his raspy morning voice and sunshine hair. The world and more, possibly. Maybe.

The song ends, and Atsumu pokes his cheek.

“Happy birthday.”

Kiyoomi bites at his grin, mumbles a thank you and sits up, rubbing at his eyes.

“That’s for ya,” Atsumu says, and drops a little pouch on his lap.

A little bloom of warmth nestles inside Kiyoomi’s ribcage, so tender it hurts to acknowledge, and he says _Thanks_. The world for Atsumu, holding his shattered self together to give Kiyoomi a present, smiling in the morning sun, fiddling with the little bandage over his knuckle.

Kiyoomi slips the strings open, pulls out a soft jumble of merino wool. Socks. Atsumu got him socks. He grins, and Atsumu grins back, and the warmth in Kiyoomi’s chest unspools.

“Since yer always cold. And yer fuckin’ apartment’s a freezer.”

“They’re very nice.” They are. Kiyoomi thumbs at the fiber, soft under his fingertips, and the feeling spills through his limbs. “Thanks, Miya.”

“The cake was also for ya.”

“Hm?”

“Last night? I made it for ya, but then—” Atsumu winces slightly, hides it with a grimace, and Kiyoomi wants to burn down fucking São Paulo. “Dropped it. Sorry.”

Kiyoomi tightens his grip on the wool with one hand, lightly squeezes Atsumu’s leg with the other.

“Hey. It’s alright. Thank you, still. For making it. And for these too,” he says, holding up the socks. “I like them a lot.”

Atsumu smiles, a fond little thing that goes right to the center of Kiyoomi’s being.

“Glad ya do, ya old man.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


After the Jackals and the Paper Mills shake hands and Kiyoomi bumps elbows with everyone instead, he flops to the ground, a thread of contentment and exhaustion running through him. He wonders if EJP’s mascot is an actual paper mill. Given that uniform, he thinks a banana would probably be better suited. He stretches forward, legs to his sides and forehead against the floor, and huffs at the realisation that, taking Itachiyama into account, Motoya’s changing uniform colours represent the ripening process of a banana. A mango, if he’s being nice.

Kiyoomi picks out a voice through the haze in his mind, feels someone slump against him, and grumbles.

“Nice game, Kiyoo-kun.”

“You too.” He waits a beat or two, out of respect for EJP’s first loss of the season and their ugly uniform colours, before adding, “Get off me.”

Motoya snorts and sits up. There’s another voice now, louder, and the approaching thunder of someone’s footsteps. 

“That last dive was _amazing_ , Moto-kun, nice! Good game!” Kiyoomi, still facing the ground and feeling slightly less deceased, almost snorts at the neverending energy of Bokuto-I’ve-got-sunshine-shining-out-my-ass Koutarou. 

“Thank you!” Motoya’s grinning, Kiyoomi can hear it in his voice. “Nice job almost ripping my arms off with the spikes, Bokuto-san. Congrats on the win.”

Bokuto cackles, rumbles out a _Thanks_. A different pair of steps, the soft thump of someone sitting down, a light touch on Kiyoomi’s hair. 

“Omi-omi.” Fingers softly run against his scalp, and he turns his head, looks up. Atsumu is red in the face, flushed from the energy high, and frowning. “Yer okay?” 

The soft concern makes Kiyoomi’s heart journey to his throat. He pushes himself up.

“Hm?”

“Ya didn’t get hurt, didja?” Atsumu reaches out for his hands and holds them, careful as ever, thumbing over the tape on his fingers as he inspects them. The touch sends little bolts of light up Kiyoomi’s arms. “Didn’t get the chance to ask, but thought ya were lookin’ a little weird in the end.”

Kiyoomi blinks. 

“That’s my face.”

“Ha-ha.”

Kiyoomi squeezes Atsumu’s fingers and the bolts of light return. The world for Atsumu’s brown brown eyes, Atsumu’s hands in his own, Atsumu’s way of saying _Omi_. 

“I’m fine.” Without looking away from Atsumu, he distantly notices Motoya getting up, pausing in his jabbering to say _See you in a bit_ and heading off with Bokuto. Atsumu’s gaze stays fixed on Kiyoomi’s, as if he hadn’t heard either. “I’d be with Coach Foster if anything had happened.”

“Yeah, figured. Wanted to make sure.” Atsumu smiles, runs a thumb over his palm and Kiyoomi burns. He rips a _Thanks, Miya_ from his throat and Atsumu huffs, lets out a little laugh that Kiyoomi wants to taste.

“Yer gonna keep callin’ me Miya until we’re eighty-five, aren’tcha?”

Kiyoomi’s heart rushes into his ears. He stares at the tiny scar on Atsumu’s knuckle, takes in a trembling breath. 

“We’ll just have to wait and see.”

Atsumu is looking down when he speaks again, pressing at a stray edge of tape on Kiyoomi’s pinky.

“What do I have to do for ya to call me by my name, huh? Get my heart broken all over again?”

Kiyoomi tenses and a chill of panic spreads in his stomach. 

“Sorry, I didn’t know you disliked it. Sorry.”

Atsumu looks up, a flicker of alarm across his eyes.

“Ah, no, no, I don’t, Omi, yer fine. Just. Would be okay, y’know?”

“I can call you that always, if you want me to. I’ll call you whatever you want.” 

The world and more, for the flush deepening across Atsumu’s face.

“Really? But I’ve asked a billion times.”

The chill extends to Kiyoomi’s ribs, to his lungs, to his throat, and pulls words out like a flood that tumbles new fears down with it.

“Sorry, I didn’t know it bothered you, I wouldn’t have kept calling you that if I’d noticed. I’m sorry, I thought it was a joke between—”

“Nah, Omi, hey.” Atsumu squeezes his hand, thumb tracing his wrist. “’s fine, I’m not mad. But, uh. Yeah. That’d be okay. If ya called me that.” 

The flood calms, stills.

“Okay.” 

“Okay, what?” The world for this grin, for the little rays of hope in his eyes, for his crooked smile. There’s a pulse racing against Kiyoomi’s palm, spilling secrets through its rhythm, and he doesn’t know who they belong to.

“Okay, Atsumu.” The grin widens, burns into his memory, and Kiyoomi smiles back. “’Tsumu.”

Atsumu giggles, all giddiness and sunshine, and the cold in Kiyoomi’s ribs thaws. He feels like he could go through a full day of practice without trouble. Like he could play another five-set match, start to finish, and win. 

  
  


Kiyoomi is walking out of the stadium, jacket zipped against the cold October air, when he sees Motoya’s texts.

[15:57] >> meet u at your place later tonight for dinner yeah? 

[15:57] >> and tell me all about this then??

[15:57] >> about Him!!!

[15:57] >> (also drooling on the court is rude and a safety hazard)

He grins despite himself.

[16:10] << Yes

[16:10] << And yes

And he lies, a little bit.

[16:11] << (I was not drooling)

* * *

  
  


Tokyo is a curtain of cherry blossom pink, a hushed bloom of spring, a city of memories. Kiyoomi feels like a child again, walking under blue air and sakura petals on his way to volleyball practice. As he rings the doorbell to the house, he supposes he’s finally come back home. His brain, oddly kind, amends the thought: Home has been somewhere else for years. He’s only visiting.

His parents welcome him with a bouquet of flowers, a celebratory dinner in Ginza, and painfully earnest questions that only help show how little they know about him. Kiyoomi sips his postseason wine and finds it tastes like an apology. He looks at two faces that near-mirror his own, two faces that are already looking back, and accepts the peace offering.

They watched the final, which surprises him, and comment on one of his plays, which shocks him even further. They ask about Hirakata, as they always do, and about Miya-senshu and Bokuto-senshu and _the team_ , which they began to do last year. He answers in between bites of overpriced risotto and, when they get home, he shows them the medal. 

The days spill by like summer rain, between exercise and books and the faces of old friends. By the time Kiyoomi notices, it’s almost May.

  
  


Atsumu picks up on the first ring, like he does every night, and grins, like weeks ago, sending streams of sunshine right into the near-midnight gloom of Kiyoomi’s bedroom. He’s bundled up in a blanket, blonde wisps of hair smushed against a pillow, and Kiyoomi somehow knows he’s wearing the Vabo-chan pyjamas, and he looks — 

“Omi.”

He looks _cute_. Kiyoomi frowns.

“Hi.”

“How’s it goin’?” Atsumu’s voice is still fragile, rough around the edges, but time and distance have softened its sharpness, and the sound doesn’t rip at Kiyoomi’s insides anymore. His eyes look as steady as they’ve been since that night in March.

“Better than I thought it would.” Kiyoomi paces around his room as they talk, counts the steps in between the walls.

“Hm. ’m glad, Omi-omi.”

 _Twelve._ A creak of bed springs, a rustle of sheets as Atsumu shifts. The camera dips a little and he _is_ wearing the damn pyjamas and he’s adorable, damn it.

“Yeah.”

“When’s —” A stifled yawn. Atsumu looks two seconds away from sleep and Kiyoomi wants to hug him. “—when’s Moto-kun gettin’ there? And stop _movin’_ , yer makin’ me dizzy.”

Kiyoomi snorts, shaking his head.

“ _Moto-kun_ is getting here in a couple of days.”

Atsumu laughs, a warm whisper through the phone, and Kiyoomi feels something inside him soften in affection, in relief. 

“’s not my problem yer utter shit at nicknames, Omi-kun.” He’s still smiling. Kiyoomi smiles back. 

“You sound better.”

A breath, a pause, a dip into the dark blue silence. 

A tiny shift in brown eyes. An exhale.

“I am.” 

There’s twelve steps from wall to wall, and Kiyoomi traces them back to his bed and falls back on it. There’s twelve steps from wall to wall, and four hundred kilometres between Tokyo and Amagasaki, and two weeks until Kiyoomi gets there. 

“Good.”

Relief, he finds, holds the shape of a smile. Of return.

That night, he dreams of a faraway place, years-distant, and a woman with a kind voice. He’s tall, taller than he’d ever been before, and can cross the room in two steps, can stretch up up and touch the ceiling. His voice is deep and warm. It sounds like he always hoped it would.

The woman smiles as she asks questions, and he smiles back.

 _Blue feels safe_ , he answers. _My best friend’s name is Atsumu_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you andie and jenna for the notes, the support and the 94732 ways you made me cry when you expressed it, and the hilarious commentary.  
> yes i thank them in every single author's note. yes they deserve it.
> 
> also: the v.league season spans from mid-october to late march/early april.


	4. snow

The afternoon sun threads through the kitchen as they prepare dinner, the cool April breeze dancing along the plants that line the windowsill. Everything feels a little new, a little odd, as it does every time Atsumu returns to Amagasaki, like he’ll wake up at any moment to find himself back in the Jackals’ dorms. 

It also feels safe. Calm, peaceful, a place where he can learn to breathe again, between the cherry blossoms and the beginning of summer, surrounded by his family’s easy grins and steady warmth.

Atsumu leans on the counter and watches as Osamu grills the tuna, fixing up a sauce and adding god knows what to the god knows where, and ’kaasan prepares the soup and the rice and looks entirely too at ease for someone making two dishes at once. She’s complaining about the rosebush in the back. It’s sick, she says, and Osamu wants to pour the leftover rice water into the roots because he has a little onigiri instead of a brain and thinks rice is the solution to every problem.

Atsumu huffs and fishes out some daikon from a jar, lays out the pieces in the shape of a little star — he’s in charge of the gargantuan chores of getting the drinks and bringing out the tsukemono and plating it, and is multitasking by also making fun of onigiri-brain man. Atsumu arranges radishes with his chopsticks and smiles at the end product, setting it on the table. It looks cute. 

He walks to the pantry and snorts when Osamu keeps prattling on about the benefits of rice water.

“Can’t fix every single problem on earth with rice, nerd.”

“Go ahead and watch me, fuckhead.”

 _“Hey,”_ ’kaasan says without looking up from where she’s stirring the soup, and Osamu mumbles out a _Sorry_ and scowls at Atsumu. He snorts again, grabs what he needs from the pantry, and evades Osamu’s vicious kick on his way back.

Atsumu sets everything down on the table: a bottle of nihonshu for him and ’kaasan, a bottle of whiskey for the food geek, and three glasses so they can drink over Atsumu’s first championship win, over ’Samu’s possible expansion into a Tokyo branch, and over being together, just because. 

He gets the umeboshi and scoops a handful into a bowl, smiling at the reminder of Omi — that’s the only filling the prickly bastard has ever tried at ’Samu’s restaurant. Pickled plums are apparently worth the horrifying experience of eating onigiri, and he’s always munching on little pre-packaged bags when they’re on the bus for away games. 

Atsumu wonders whether Omi is in Tokyo yet, whether his parents are being nice, whether he’s doing okay. Atsumu’s mind flits between his affections, and he wonders whether Shou — 

He shakes his head, presses a hand against his eyes, and goes to bug Osamu again.

  
  
  
  


Atsumu lets himself cry once he’s in bed, fresh linens up to his chin. He sniffles and squeezes his eyes shut to try and calm down and stop more tears from falling.

“Hey,” Osamu grumbles from the bottom bunk, and kicks Atsumu’s mattress when he doesn’t respond. “C’mere.”

Atsumu attempts to quietly clear his throat and fails. “What d’ya want.”

“’Tsumu.” 

Atsumu rubs at his eyes with the bedsheets, steps down, and immediately starts crying again when Osamu pulls him into a hug.

They sleep like they did when they were much younger, curled together in a single bunk, Osamu’s fingers loosely holding his brother’s wrist.   
  


* * *

  
  


A week before the start of the volleyball season and just in time for their twenty-fifth, ’Samu finishes the expansion of the Osaka branch. It’s a pretty place, stone floors and high ceilings, decorated with hanging lights and a few potted plants courtesy of Omi. They manage to squeeze in a long, long table for all the guests and hang up a little sign that says _Closed for a private event_. 

The twins spend the morning together in ’Samu’s tiny apartment, say _Happy birthday_ with matching goofy grins as soon as they wake up, ’Samu on the bed and Atsumu on the shitty futon, and call ’kaasan before breakfast. She cries, as she always does, and they cry too, as they always do, and buy train tickets to visit her in two weeks, which is the soonest their free time overlaps.

Atsumu gets Osamu a knife, which, according to the internet reviews, is supposed to be pointy and nice and sharp in all the right places, and bumps up his investment for the soon-to-be-inaugurated Tokyo branch. Osamu watches him fiddle with the bank’s website and sniffs, huffs out a wet laugh. Atsumu snorts, manages to finally, finally pay, and cries again when ’Samu surprises him with a fucking homemade buffet breakfast and hands him a colourful blanket and a wonky scarf.

“Learnin’ how to knit,” Osamu says. Atsumu shrugs the blanket on, loops the scarf around his neck, and almost crushes his brother in a hug.

  
  


Their friends start spilling into Onigiri Miya at half past three, bearing smiles and armfuls of gifts and food, and letting in wisps of the October chill when they open the door. 

Kita-san and Aran are the first to arrive, because of course they are, looking very much married and domestic and sappily in love. The four of them squish into a hug that stretches until Suna walks in a couple of minutes later, snorts at the sight, and takes a photo. 

“How does it feel,” Suna asks, “to be a quarter of a century old?” And he wipes a sleeve over his eyes and hugs them too. 

The majority of Inarizaki’s ex-VBC files in soon after, as well as some of Osamu’s culinary school buddies, a handful of the Jackals, and one Akaashi Keiji, freshly published author. 

Osamu herds everybody to the long, long table and starts bringing out the food and using his restaurant voice to explain what’s in every dish and _stop laughin’, ’Tsumu, there’s a big fuckin’ difference between tuna and salmon_. 

Atsumu snorts, takes all of the gifts to the kitchen and arranges them on one of the metal counters. He wonders where Omi is, and why he’s late, and why he hasn’t texted. He’s in the middle of making a little pyramid out of them, whistling a half-forgotten tune, when he hears a set of footsteps he’d know anywhere. He grins, and turns to face him.

Omi is standing in the kitchen doorway, breath heaving and a blush across his face and curls slightly askew, a face mask hanging from one of his ears. He’s holding a white cardboard box.

“Miya.” Atsumu can’t even get upset over how Omi hasn’t said _Atsumu_ since March, because he’s here and he’s smiling and he’s an arm’s length away and he came to see him and — “Hi.”

Atsumu grins.

“Hi yerself.” He steps closer, and Omi hands him the box.

“Happy birthday.” 

Atsumu opens it, finds a cake with a circle of strawberries carefully placed on top and a squiggly _Happy 25th_ in Omi’s disastrous handwriting. Atsumu’s grin widens, out of joy or wonder or a mix of both.

“Thank you, Omi-kun. I love it.”

“I’m glad.” Omi smiles back. It’s one of the smiles that make Atsumu feel oddly lucky. Something glints in Omi’s eyes, something akin to the start of a laugh, and the corner of his mouth twitches. “Don’t drop it this time.”

Atsumu gapes for a beat, and Omi’s expression breaks and they burst into laughter at the same time. The sound spills through the kitchen, intertwined joy echoing against the walls and slowly softening into giggles.

“Yer a fuckin’ bastard,” Atsumu huffs, grinning, and Omi’s smile widens.

“Sorry.” 

He doesn’t look sorry at all. 

Atsumu wants to kiss him.

  
  


They sit at one of the kitchen’s steel counters and share a slice, two forks in a flimsy plastic plate overflowing with sponge cake and whipped cream and strawberries. Atsumu knocks an ankle against Omi’s leg and hums happily, lets out a _’s so good, Omi-omi_.

“I’m happy you like it,” Omi says, and takes his own bite, licks his lips. Atsumu’s heart trips in on itself.

“Oi, ’Tsumu, what the hell are ya two—” Osamu freezes in the kitchen entrance, stares at them, and lets loose his thunder of a cackle. Atsumu bristles.

“The fuck’s yer problem, shitbag.”

“Nothin’,” he replies, shaking his head and already stepping out and still grinning, the little bastard, traces of incredulity shading his laugh as he walks away.

Atsumu looks at Omi and Omi looks back. Atsumu shrugs, grins, and Omi smiles again. They stay in the kitchen until they finish their slice. 

  
  
  


After everyone has gone home and dawn is almost spilling through the skyline, the twins sit at one of the tables and share a beer. Atsumu leans back in his chair and thinks about his friends, thinks about the way Kita-san and Aran looked at each other, the way Aran unconsciously fiddled with the gold band on his finger and leaned close to press a kiss on Kita-san’s temple. The little precious intimacy of holding hands while surrounded by their friends. 

He thinks about them at sixteen and at twenty-six, wonders how they’ll be at thirty-, fifty-, seventy-six, hopes he’ll be there with them.

He hopes he’ll be there for Omi’s decades, too, get to see his laugh lines and his grumpiness and the first grays in his curls and do his dummy seven-step skincare routine together and make him tea in the morning and at night and wake up next to him and get to play and play and play volleyball together until their knees give out and take care of him. _I want to take care of him_ , Atsumu realises, and huffs out a giggle.

“’Samu,” he starts, and Osamu groans. “I haven’t even said anythin’, what the _fuck_!”

“Oh, I know that voice, sappy ass.”

Atsumu laughs because the bastard’s right, damn him. And Atsumu couldn’t snap back if he wanted to, anyway, because he’s still warm with the echoes of their friends’ laughter in the air and their looks of easy happiness in his memory and the taste of Omi’s fucking homemade cake on his tongue. Giddy with the thought of Omi-omi-omi-omi, sitting next to him and saying _Happy birthday_ , and talking to Suna and Kita-san and Aran and Bokkun and even Ginjima, for fuck’s sake, and actually _staying_ at the party when he’s still an antisocial clam. An antisocial clam that Atsumu might be, could be, most definitely is, a little bit in love with. 

’Samu holds out his hand and Atsumu takes a swig of beer and passes him the bottle.

“It’s Omi, isn’t it?”

Atsumu huffs, grinning, and ’Samu grins back. Damn him, damn him and his tiny intuitive rice brain. 

“Of course it is.”

* * *

  
  


Atsumu wakes up to the sound of birdsong. He rolls over, bumps against the edge of the bed, and smiles as he remembers where he is. 

He stretches, stretches, _stretches_ , pops his head below the bunk, and grins at the sight of his brother’s ugly sleeping face. A rush of affection tingles through Atsumu’s chest and, inexplicably, makes him feel like he could cry, so he hits Osamu with a pillow and flees into the shower, even though the bastard’s a heavy sleeper.

Fifteen minutes later, Atsumu pads into the kitchen, wet hair dripping on his shirt, and puts the kettle on. He looks through the doorway to the garden and sees his mother and Omi are outside, squatting by the flower beds in the far end, surrounded by a pool of sunshine. 

The sight is new and oddly familiar all at once, as if Omi had been missing for years and simply returned a month ago, came back home. As if he’d known ’kaasan and Amagasaki and his house for ages instead of four weeks. Atsumu leans against the doorway, already smiling, and watches them. 

Omi is going on about something, wearing that scrunched-up expression that means the topic is dear to his heart, and he looks adorable gesturing with gardening-gloved hands, only pausing his rant to take one off and gently hold a flowerbud between his fingers. His mother leans forward to peer at it, nods along. Atsumu is reminded of the way she treats Suna, the way she treats Aran, Kita-san, with the softness of a love spooled throughout years of knowing them and feeding them and cheering them on. Hell, he’s reminded of the way she treats _him_.

The morning light brushes over them both, still transfixed on the fucking flower. His mother laughs and Omi smiles, one of the soft ones, and Atsumu’s chest constricts. He wants — 

“Mornin’, fuckhead,” Osamu grumbles out somewhere behind him, and Atsumu startles.

“Scrub.” He turns, sees Osamu pouring out tea into a mug, and walks over to steal it. He’s already taking a sip when he notices Osamu is making two cups anyway and almost feels immature. 

Osamu smirks, as if he had heard every thought, and walks outside. Atsumu wants to throw another pillow at him for being so calm and thoughtful and annoyingly nice, but he follows, soft wood under his feet giving way to dew and grass, and their mother looks up, as if she’d sensed them. And maybe she had, like the day when they arrived after the championship final only to find her waiting at the door. Like the times when Atsumu would sit on the engawa before dawn, unable to stay in bed, and she’d walk out with a blanket and a cup of tea and the offer of company. Like four weeks ago, when he’d grinned at his phone, looking at Omi’s _See you in an hour_ , and she had simply smiled and told Osamu to set an extra plate at the table.

The early sun is dancing along her dark hair, playing through the steady warmth of her eyes and the new laugh lines that frame her gaze. Atsumu, ten steps away from her, feels very, very small. Young.

He’s briefly five eight ten fourteen again, seeing her everyday without recognising the luck in that. Eating together, the three of them, and finding it common, finding it so comfortable it was close to boring. Being so focused on volleyball, so focused on himself, he couldn’t grasp missing something until it was gone forever, and he was left trying to hold the sun in his palms but closing his hands over nothing but light.

His mother smiles, stands, and her _Mornin’, boys of mine_ brings Atsumu back to the garden. Osamu kisses her hair and Atsumu says good morning back before his eyes flit over to his friend. 

Omi, still kneeling by the flowers, looks up at him. Atsumu catches the fondness that seeps into his expression, understands the affection shown in a black gaze and the curve of his lips.

“Hi,” Omi says.

And Atsumu —

Omi’s eyes look —

Atsumu wants —

Omi tilts his head slightly, a question, and Atsumu reaches out and grasps an answer.

“Hi.”

Atsumu steps into the sunlight and kneels beside him, stares at the rosebush.

“What’s up with the plant?”

And Omi smiles, spring blooming all around him, and explains. 

* * *

  
  


“D’ya think it’ll snow tonight?” 

Hirakata is empty at two in the morning, a deep blue silence seeping through the streets, and Atsumu’s question cuts through like a shot of sunshine. Omi’s footsteps are soft beside him, and his voice, when he answers, sounds deep blue too. Atsumu wants to hear it pressed against his skin, feel it in his mouth, wake up to it.

“I think November’s a little early for snow.”

Atsumu kicks a pebble. He’s right. They turn a corner and step into a street lined by lantern-covered trees, gold and silver slicing a path of light through the dark. Atsumu turns to look at him, another sentence on the tip of his tongue, and his voice catches.

Omi didn’t bother to tug his mask on, kept it in his pocket as they left the restaurant, and he looks unfairly, stupidly beautiful, even more so than usual. The soft glow of the lights dances through his curls, the cold air brings out a flush in his cheeks and the tip of his nose, and Atsumu _wants_.

“Omi,” he says. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself.” Omi smiles, that ridiculously pretty one that makes Atsumu weak. So fucking lucky lucky lucky. “Had a good time?”

“Yeah.” Dinner with their teammates was nice, but Atsumu would have a good time doing anything with him. He’d have the time of his life listening to Osamu talk about his silly-ass rice water as long as Omi was there. “Did you?”

“I always have a good time when I’m with you,” Omi says, blunt as fucking always, and Atsumu almost swoons, dizzy with adoration. He reaches for Omi’s arm, tips into him until his forehead is against Omi’s shoulder, and huffs, heart beating loud enough for a fucking orchestra and tenderness squeezing the air from his lungs. Omi steadies him with an arm around his waist and Atsumu shivers.

“Yer gonna fuckin’ kill me one day, what the fuck.” 

Omi laughs, and the low rumble goes straight through Atsumu’s body and reorganises every single thought and feeling and experience inside him, seeps into his bones and his blood and his body as if it had been there all along.

Atsumu pulls back a little and fists the front of Omi’s absurdly soft sweater ( _cashmere_ , he’d said. It’s even softer than those socks Atsumu got him almost a year ago. How is it that soft?). He stares up at him, holy under the canopy of leaves and lights and possibility. _Holy_ , he thinks, distantly, and takes in a breath, throat constricting —

“I’m in love with you,” Omi says. “Have been for a while, I think.”

Atsumu gasps, blinks, gapes.

“ _What?_ No fuckin’ way.”

Omi snorts.

“Yes fuckin’ way.” He laughs again, eyes shining, and Atsumu giggles, unbelieving and giddy and drunk on his smile, drunk on the impossible thing he just said, drunk on _him_.

“Holy shit,” Atsumu says, grinning at Omi grinning back. “Well, yer in luck, Omi-kun.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

His voice is low and warm and Atsumu wants to fucking drown in it.

“I—uh.” Atsumu blushes, stumbling on his nerves for a moment, and the tension seeps out of his body when he meets Omi’s eyes, familiar and tender and _his_. “I’m in love with ya too.” 

“I know,” he says, grinning like a fucking jackass, and Atsumu snorts. He tilts forward slightly, unconsciously, and his body smoulders when Omi’s eyes flicker to his mouth.

“Can I kiss you?” 

Atsumu feels he’s having a fucking religious experience right in the middle of a random street in Hirakata.

“Fuck,” he breathes out, and Omi actually _giggles_ , this light wonderful sound that lodges right in Atsumu’s chest, and he laughs too. “Can _I_ kiss ya?”

“Can’t just repeat everything I say, ’Tsumu.” Omi’s voice is steady as ever, but he’s blushing and Atsumu feels his heart racing under his palm. “But yeah. Yes.”

Atsumu cups Omi’s face with a hand, tentative and shy because he’s learning how to touch him like this, and his breath hitches when Omi’s fingers curl around the back of his neck. And he kisses him.

Omi tilts his head, slots their lips together, and Atsumu can’t feel anything that isn’t the sweet warmth of his mouth, the fingers softly pulling him in, the way he opens under his touch, like it’s instinct. He loops his arms around Omi’s neck, trying to get close and closer, sighs when Omi licks into his mouth. 

They kiss, and kiss, and kiss, and Atsumu, flustered and giddy and ravenous, pulls away to catch his breath. He stays close enough to feel Omi’s smile.

“Hi,” Atsumu says, and Omi laughs against his mouth, and it sounds rough and hoarse and deathly sweet, deep fucking blue rushing into Atsumu’s body, and Atsumu kisses him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> have you ever seen snow? ive only seen it a handful of times.


End file.
